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When I'm not freaking out about my daughter's entry into kindergarten, I'm trying to do our back-to-school shopping little by little. While I do fondly recall hitting the stores for bargins and I *love* back-to-school shopping, I just don't want to do it all at once this year. This week's Chicago Parent prize is a pack from Mabel's Labels. GO ...

In January of 2006 Newsweek put four white boys on their cover with the headline ''The Boy Crisis.'' Inside they told the tale that was so shocking that the myth grew so fast that the factual evidence that quickly came out was ignored. What was this myth? That boys were being left behind. By almost every benchmark, boys across the nation and in ...

In case you haven't heard, the Chicago Public Schools will be opening a few new schools next year and they are magnets plus a gifted center. So you CPSers know what that means - LOTTERY TIME! More choices in that whole ''school choice'' thing. In reality we know it's more school luck than choice, but put as the commercials say, you can't win if ...

We all know that the Chicago Public Schools are in a state of um, flux. They are trying things that other school systems don't do or maybe even, don't need. One of the experiments that seem to work in some schools is the Local School Council:Local School Councils (LSCs) are elected bodies at nearly every Chicago Public Schools (CPS) elementary, ...

There are days when my husband & I joke around about shipping our sassy & (some days too) precocious daughter to boarding school. Thus it intrigued me to see the headline - No small plan: Public boarding schools for Chicago - in Friday's Chicago Tribune. Low and behold...the first time I've ever said ''Brilliant!'' about CPS. Yes, I know ...

Saturday ushers in March and the hope that spring will overcome winter, some televised spring training games, Shamrock shakes, and of course, notification from the Chicago Public School lottery and all those privates & parochial schools on whether or not your child was selected. All of this is because Chicago Public Schools have school choice. ...

This action alert just popped into my inbox from MomsRising.com: Right now, more than 40,000 kindergarteners are home alone each day afterschool, with a total of more than 14,000,000 school-age kids on their own afterschool. Surprised? The reality is that most parents work now, and there are too few affordable and accessible afterschool ...

For the record, I'm not supporting anyone in the 2008 election at this point. I'm watching, reading, and trying to decide between a few candidates. I am voting for a Democrat, but occasionally like what I hear from a few GOP candidates. Today thou is a whole 'nother story. In today's The Swamp, Sen. Obama rips into former-MA Gov. ...

In part one we defined the problem with the increase in sexualization of girls, in part two we discussed some of the criticisms of the APA report, and here we'll talk about what we DO to combat our girls' childhood being taken away from them. Let's get to it! Luckily for us the APA report [pages 36-42] does an excellent job at suggesting many ...

Please note this is a recreated post as I could not find it on the internet archive. Soon after the APA report was released my favorite (not) editorial writer came out with a critique. I have to say directly to Kathleen Parker, please come up with a new tune! She starts out by first showing us that she has no idea why reports like this are ...